Ahmedabad, Jan 17
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have emerged as the single largest
investment sector in the just-concluded Vibrant Gujarat Global
Investors Summit, accounting for 38.1 percent of a total investment
of around Rs.4,480 billion (about $100 billion) in 308 memorandums
of understanding (MoUs) signed with the Gujarat government.
In financial terms, the MoUs relating to SEZs have promised an
investment of Rs.1,706 billion ($38.5 billion) with a potential to
employ about 605,640 people, according to an expert analysis of
investment data available here.
But power, oil and gas, ports, civil aviation and rail transport
together have accounted for 45 percent of the total investment or
Rs.2,022 billion ($45 billion).
The disappointing sectors were agro food processing, which accounted
for 2.57 percent, engineering, auto, ceramics (2.84 percent),
textiles and apparels (1.82 percent) and tourism (2.37 percent).
Education was just a meagre (0.12 percent) and medical tourism (0.37
percent).
The first major disappointment relates to textiles and garments.
According to a quick analysis done on MoUs signed in this segment,
it is said that most of the MoUs inked are for capital-intensive
projects.
V.L. Mote, a former faculty member of the Indian Institute of
Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, who specialises in textiles, opined
that since no details were available for investments within the SEZs,
it was difficult to give a qualitative estimate of the investment
pattern.
But in industries comprising textiles and garments, the investment
pattern appeared to be skewed towards textiles and less towards
apparels. At least an average of Rs.900,000 ($20,330) will be needed
to create one job. For a labour intensive industry this was high,
Mote said.
He said Gujarat has a tremendous competitive advantage in garments
with the availability of raw material and a big domestic market. But
the state did not have the manufacturing capacity to meet the
demand.
"This is opening the way for import of garments to meet the Indian
demand. This means that Gujarat will be passing on its advantage to
overseas competitors like China, Hong Kong and possibility South
Africa," Mote added.
The summit also turned out to be a big vote of confidence for Chief
Minister Narendra Modi. The praises heaped on him by icons of the
Indian industry indicated that they might not be averse to doing
business in Gujarat.
The MoUs signed in the summit were more with Indian companies than
the foreign ones.
It was said that foreign companies had raised issues in the meeting
with officials but they could not be sorted out. The two major
issues, it is learned, related to land and water.
However, state chief secretary, Sudhir Mankad, while reviewing the
progress of projects, for which MoUs were signed in the previous
summits, indicated that land was one of them.
He said the land laws, which were enacted long ago to prevent
diversion of farmland to other purposes, might have to be looked in
to today's context.
(c) Boloji.com :
1999–2008 : All
Rights Reserved Boloji.com is owned and managed by Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer
No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
